Title race 2023/4

[Jareth]

If we are going to be compared to Leicester, then we need to win the title first. 

[nick76]

25 minutes ago, Pongo Waring said:

They're all expecting villa to go in a bad period. Have we had a bad period since Emery has been in charge?

I do love the pundits…it’s not all of course and we are getting more respect from many but a few that were saying “Why not” when Spurs were flying high 6 games ago but for us “no chance” yet we are six games further on and almost half of the season in.

 It’s also hard to argue history because we finished above Spurs last season, they’ve lost their star striker, have a new manager whereas we have a manager whose a serial winner and all he is doing is keeping up his points average that he’s had for a full twelve months, not just this season.

Edited December 11, 2023 by nick76

[bannedfromHandV]

15 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said:

The closest thing was a 3 game losing streak to Leicester at home, man city away, arsenal at home.

And we shouldn’t have lost two of those really, we were the better team against Leicester but gifted them the win and at 2-2 against arsenal Bailey hits the bar and a few mins later arsenal get lucky with a shot hitting the bar and then Martinez before going in.

[Risso]

Leicester did brilliantly, but it was mostly down to the brilliance of Vardy and Mahrez that year who got over 40 goals between them, plus Kante in midfield. Keep a tight defence and have your two best players score 40 goals and any team at all is going to pose a major threat. As soon as the big boys plundered them for their best players, that was pretty well it. Emery has achieved what we have so far with mostly other managers' players, and has consistently got 2 points a game. Plus I'd say there's zero chance of us losing all our best players next season, like Leicester did.

We're here to stay, people need to get used to it.

[JoshVilla]

Our record across the whole of 2023 has us sat in 2nd, behind only Man City, who we absolutely dominated on Wednesday night. 

This isn't just Villa having a purple patch of form, this has been a sustained level of performance over the course of nearly a full calendar year. We most likely won't win the title, but we're absolutely in a title race until we're not.

[bannedfromHandV]

We have a lot of players in their prime years which is helping I think, most of the team are in that 26-30 year old sweet spot so whilst Emery has inherited the majority of our players he’s inherited them at a great time, obviously still miraculous to have turned us into what we are.

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Captain_Townsend said:

Well, for a start we have finished in the top two three times since 1981, two more times in the top 5 and about 6 top six finishes on top as well as four other major trophies. We aren't a minnow FFS

We haven't finished in the top 2 for 30 years.

We haven't finished in the top 6 for 14 years

We haven't won a major trophy for 27 years.

 

What planet are people on   If Forest were 2 points off the top would you be saying "well they've won two european cups, they're not a minnow"

 

What we're doing is **** remarkable. And to be honest I actually think playing it down because we're historically a big club is the thing that's direspectful. You're taking away from the achievement that Emery and the club are currently heading for 

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Mark Albrighton said:

I find these Leicester comparisons a bit bizarre. 

Where did they finish the season before they won the league? I don’t think it was 7th. Were they already in Europe when they did their title charge? I don’t think so. Did they spend £30m+ on a central defender and £40m+ on a wide forward in the summer window beforehand? I don’t think they did. Had Leicester won the league ever, or had a history of ever seriously competing for it? No I don’t think they had.

Is the idea that Gerrard is Nigel Pearson and Emery is Ranieri? The timings of the respective manager changes don’t really mirror each other either. To an extent, Emery is a bit like Ranieri in that both were perhaps not massively appreciated by the English game until they went to Villa and Leicester respectively. But that’s about it.

What Leicester did was amazing, etc etc. Obviously their rivals kinda all had an off season which didn’t hurt. I don’t think Liverpool, Arsenal or City are really having an off season this year. So in THAT sense, if we somehow won the league I would say that the competition was stronger than when Leicester won it - but the starting positions for both Villa and Leicester are wildly different, Leicester starting from much further behind.

We may as well be compared to Blackburn in ‘95. There’s about as much similarity.

What Leicester achieved was better than what we would achieve even if we won the league. but not by much. 

I don't understand why people are playing this down? Or why people are annoyed by pundits commenting on how remarkable it is.

14 months ago we were staring at relegation and we had Stevem **** Gerrard in charge.

 

How short are your memories?

Edited December 11, 2023 by Stevo985

[Risso]

I don't think it's downplaying the achievement Stevo, more taking exception with the inherent suggestion that we'll be a similar "flash in the pan."

[Stevo985]

7 minutes ago, Risso said:

I don't think it's downplaying the achievement Stevo, more taking exception with the inherent suggestion that we'll be a similar "flash in the pan."

People's issue seems to be that we're being portrayed as an underdog with the Leicester comparisons because people think we're a big club.

We might be historically a big club, but we haven't' been mixing it with big clubs for 30 years.

People need to check their arrogance about Villa. It's one thing to be proud, but to be delusional to the point where your downplaying what we're potentially achieving isn't a good look.

We were in a relegation battle a year ago. Now we're posting in a a thread about winning the title. And it's not ironic! The comparisons to Leicester are obvious

Edited December 11, 2023 by Stevo985

[Kiwivillan]

45 minutes ago, Risso said:

Leicester did brilliantly, but it was mostly down to the brilliance of Vardy and Mahrez that year who got over 40 goals between them, plus Kante in midfield. Keep a tight defence and have your two best players score 40 goals and any team at all is going to pose a major threat. As soon as the big boys plundered them for their best players, that was pretty well it. Emery has achieved what we have so far with mostly other managers' players, and has consistently got 2 points a game. Plus I'd say there's zero chance of us losing all our best players next season, like Leicester did.

We're here to stay, people need to get used to it.

I remember the season they won it when I first took notice of them and thought Mahrez is serious baller. 2-0 up and he killed us with 2 assists late on and they won 3-2 and that was early in the season. Unbelievable they bought him from Ligue 2 for 250k or something ridiculous

[turvontour]

48 minutes ago, Risso said:

Leicester did brilliantly, but it was mostly down to the brilliance of Vardy and Mahrez that year who got over 40 goals between them, plus Kante in midfield. Keep a tight defence and have your two best players score 40 goals and any team at all is going to pose a major threat. As soon as the big boys plundered them for their best players, that was pretty well it. Emery has achieved what we have so far with mostly other managers' players, and has consistently got 2 points a game. Plus I'd say there's zero chance of us losing all our best players next season, like Leicester did.

We're here to stay, people need to get used to it.

We are a completely different situation to Leicester when they won it. For a start, we were one of the best teams in the league for most of last season.

Leicester was a rapid freak title win from nowhere and then decline. I think our aim is more to occupy the top 5 for the foreseeable future. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Give me 4th right now! 

[Mark Albrighton]

4 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What Leicester achieved was better than what we would achieve even if we won the league. but not by much. 

I don't understand why people are playing this down? Or why people are annoyed by pundits commenting on how remarkable it is.

14 months ago we were staring at relegation and we had Stevem **** Gerrard in charge.

 

How short are your memories?

It’s not playing it down. It’s been wonderful. It is remarkable.

It’s just not doing a Leicester. It’s such a lazy, poor comparison for the reasons I outlined. 

Just out of interest were Newcastle “doing a Leicester” last season? They were bottom of the league with a poor manager in the season prior. They replace him. They improve. They spent most of last season in the top four. I don’t remember it being called as such.

I don’t think they “did a Leicester”.

I don’t think we are.

[Risso]

We're so much more of a complete team than Leicester were. They had Vardy, Mahrez and Kante who were the three best players in the league that season. Kante went on to be the best midfielder in the league for Chelsea for several years, and Mahrez was similarly impressive and even more successful at Man City. Other than though they were mainly decent but unspectacular players like Huth, Morgan and Simpson. Once Vardy and Kante had gone, it was a few years of mid table before Brenda got them up to 5th again.

We're not going to lose our best players, and even when we did through injury (eg Mings and Buendia) we'd already bought in big name additions like Torres and Diaby. We share the goals around and have quality in all departments.

[StefanAVFC]

I'm not sure we were truly in a relegation battle last season. Emery took over early on in the season, and we never really looked back. Maybe if the clearing in the woods had stayed in charge, but he wasn't, so we were never in that mix to actually go down IMO.

[useless]

Aston Villa winning the Premier League title can be both remarkable and a shock if were to happen, but also not particularly comparable to when Leicester won it, other than both being a shock, but Leicester was a much bigger shock than if we were to do it, and it's not even close, that wasn't just a shock, but one of the biggest shocks in sporting history.

Leicester had spent the previous season fighting relegation and were tipped to do the same again, they had barely spent any money, the only player they signed that summer that played a major part was Kanté but at the time of his signing no one knew he was to become the player he did, they had also had to replace Pearson in the summer who had done well for them, and Ranieri wasn't seen as a good replacement, they weren't even expected to finish anywhere near top half never mind win the league.

Us winning  the title would also be a major shock, but not to the same level as when Leicester did it, we finished seventh last season, have team full of players that if they were to move on would go to other top clubs, and have one of the most highly rated managers in world football

I'm not actually sure if all this talk of winning the title is helpful anyway, as might lead to a scenario where we have a very good season say of finishing sixth or fifth, but because it dosn't match this kind of talk that good finish ends up getting looked upon by many as a failure or disapointment, whereas in fact it would have been une saison fantastique

[Pongo Waring]

I think the comparison to Leicester comes because its a shock to people that a "none big 6 team" can win the league.  
Not my view just the views of none villa fans. So basically Spurs winning the title wouldn't be a shock, But Villa would be, even tho we finished above them last season. It's odd.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Pongo Waring

[WHY]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

And we shouldn’t have lost two of those really, we were the better team against Leicester but gifted them the win and at 2-2 against arsenal Bailey hits the bar and a few mins later arsenal get lucky with a shot hitting the bar and then Martinez before going in.

Completely agree on the above, fine margins in both the Leicester and Arsenal games. Oddly we probably played a better 90 minutes against Arsenal in the above game than we did the weekend but, lost. Leicester had a few new signings in that day who had their best games and were then poor for the rest of the season! 

[WHY]

8 minutes ago, Pongo Waring said:

I think the comparison to Leicester comes because its a shock to people that a "none big 6 team" can win the league.  
Not my view just the views of none villa fans. So basically Spurs winning the title wouldn't be a shock, But Villa would be, even tho we finished above them last season. It's odd.

Spurs have been in the mix though for the last 8 or so years so I get it but, it would still be a big shock if either us or Spurs were to win it.